1951-11-02

Mr. Speaker:: May I take this opportunity to present the third report of the committee which was appointed for the purpose of suggesting any changes that may be desirable to assure the more expeditious dispatch of public business.
Your committee held a further meeting on Friday, November 2, to consider the results of the three weeks' experiment relating to the hours of sitting of the house and recommends as follows, notwithstanding clause 1 (b) and clause 2 of its second report which was concurred in on Friday, October 26:
That, unless and until otherwise ordered, the following hours of sitting be given a trial for the balance of the present session, commencing on Monday, November 5:
Mr. Speaker take the chair at 2.30 o'clock p.m. on each sitting day except Friday when he takes the chair at 2 o'clock p.m., and unless the closure rule (standing order 39) be then in operation, adjourn the house on each sitting day, except Wednesday and Friday, at 10 o'clock p.m., without question put, with provision for an intermission from 6.IS o'clock p.m. to 8 o'clock p.m. On Wednesday and Friday Mr. Speaker will adjourn the house at 6.15 o'clock p.m., without question put: and, subject to any special orders, the hours set aside for private and public bills under standing order 15 remain the same on Tuesday and be from 5.15 o'clock p.m. to 6.15 o'clock p.m. on Friday.


Mr. W. G. Weir (Porlage-Neepawa):: Mr. Speaker, by leave of the house I beg to move, seconded by the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Casselman):
That the third report of the select committee appointed on October 9, 1951, to consider with Mr. Speaker the procedure of this house for the purpose of suggesting any changes that may be desirable to assure the more expeditious dispatch of public business and presented this day be npw concurred in.


Mr. G. A. Cruickshank (Fraser Valley):: Mr. Speaker, if this motion is debatable I [DOT] should like to have a word to say. I appreciate the fact that the members of the committee are trying to reform the rules of the house. Since 1940 the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) and myself have been most insistent that something be done by tvay of amplification of the speeches made
in the house so that they can be heard- why I do not know-by those in the press gallery and others. We have had reports that action was to be taken. Committees have been appointed, and I believe like other committees they have travelled across the world. I am still waiting for the trip that I am to be permitted by the government to take. So far no action has been taken. I do not like the hours of sitting that have been tried out during the present session. I come from western Canada and I cannot go home on Thursdays and come back on Tuesdays. I have to stay here.
I think that a member needs a bookkeeper and comptometer to keep track of the hours that he is supposed to be here. I want to make a suggestion to the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and move an amendment if I may. I suggest that we could accomplish the end toward which we are striving very simply by allowing private members to speak only for twenty minutes and permitting members of the cabinet and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew), which X appreciate is a matter of policy, forty minutes or more, with the consent of the house, to put forward their policies.
I submit that rules such as we have had during the past three weeks would not hold out in any small town council. You do not know whether you are supposed to be here or whether you are supposed not to be here. 1 quite appreciate that this does not make any difference to some members because they are never here anyway, but we from the west who want to get home for Christmas do not appreciate these new-fangled rules which are being brought up by the deputy minister of opposition external affairs from Peel. They just do not make sense as tar as I am concerned.
I probably am not in order, as I seldom am, but I would suggest that we limit the speeches of members to twenty minutes and enforce the rule that there shall be no reading of speeches written by members of the press gallery or of a political organization. I think in that way we could speed up matters considerably. These new suggestions that are being made are a lot of tommyrot because they accommodate nobody. If we cannot devise something to accommodate the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) let us go back to the old rules.

Freight Rates


Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roselown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say a word on this. I have some sympathy with the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank). I feel, as he does, that we should try to establish hours of sitting and not be changing them from week to week, or from day to day, as we are doing under this particular motion. I do not like the idea of sitting until 6.15. In my opinion the best hours of sitting would be 2.30 to 6.00 and 8.00 to 10.00, sitting on Friday evenings as we usually do. With the amount of business that is to be done I do not think we are justified in cutting our hours to the extent that it is proposed to do in this particular resolution.
I think before this goes into effect some further opportunity should be given to hon. members to discuss it. May I say to the hon. member for Fraser Valley and to other hon. members that I agree that the length of speeches might be curtailed to some extent, and I certainly agree with the hon. member in the suggestion he has made with regard to the reading of speeches. But I do not agree that they are written by members of the press gallery; certainly my own are not. I just want to join with the hon. member in the protest he has made with regard to the manner in which hours have been juggled around during the past three weeks.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


William Gilbert Weir: I beg
to move:
That the following members comprise the special committee on railway legislation as provided for in the resolution passed by the house on Friday, October 26, 1951: Messrs. Argue, Ashbourne, Beni-dickson, Brooks, Cavers, Chevrier, Churchill, Cleaver, Diefenbaker. Gillis, Green, Helme, Higgins, Johnston, Kirk (Digby-Yarmouth), Lafontaine, Laing, Low, Macdonald (Edmonton East), Mac-donnell (Greenwood). MacNaught, Macnaughton, McCulloch, Mott, Mutch, Nowlan, Picard, Pinard, Biley, Stewart (Yorkton), Weaver.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. H. R. Argue (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave, seconded by the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Thatcher), to move the adjournment of the house under standing order 31 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the reported application of the railways of Canada for a further freight rate

increase of between 5 and 6 per cent, and the urgent need for intervention by the government to prevent any such increase prior to the passing of the freight rates legislation now before parliament, and the need for making it clear that the railways should not be permitted to pass their defence surtaxes on to the people of Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: This motion made under the provisions of standing order 31 is to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance. The motion has been read at the proper time and the hon. member has handed me a written statement. It is my duty to determine whether it is in order and whether the matter is of urgent public importance.
First, with respect to whether the motion is in order. It purports to deal with a matter which is before the board of transport commissioners, and if that is so then it is sub judice and under our rules could not be debated.
If there is no application I cannot see the immediate urgency of the matter because it could be discussed on either Monday or Wednesday of next week. I realize that hon. members have spoken already on the amendment to the amendment, but very few hon. members have spoken on the amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne and it is possible that there may be other amendments. I am afraid that I cannot allow the motion to be proceeded with at this time.



COMBINES LEGISLATION


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Stuart S. Garson (Minister of
Justice) moved:
That a joint committee of both houses of parliament be appointed to consider the interim report of the committee appointed to study combines legislation, tabled in the House of Commons Friday, October 12,	1951; and to consider appropriate
amendments to the Combines Investigation Act based thereon.
That twenty-six members of the House of Commons, to be designated by the house at a later date, be members of the joint committee on the part of this house, and that standing order 65 of the House of Commons be suspended in relation thereto:
That the said committee have power to appoint, from among its members, such subcommittees as may be deemed advisable or necessary; to call for persons, papers and records; to examine witnesses under oath; to sit while the house is sitting, and to report from time to time;
That the said committee have power to print such papers and evidence from day to day as may be ordered by the committee for the use of the committee and of parliament, and that standing order 64 of the House of Commons be suspended in relation thereto.
And that a message be sent to the Senate requesting that house to unite with this house for the above

purpose and to select, if the Senate deems advisable, some of its members to act on the said proposed joint committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, hon. members of this chamber I am sure are familiar with the interim report of the committee appointed to study combines legislation which is referred to in this resolution. This committee, which I shall refer to as the Mac-Quarrie committee, since that is the name of its chairman in order to avoid confusion with the joint committee referred to in the resolution, was appointed by me with the approval of the government in June, 1950. Its terms of reference, to which I shall make detailed reference in a moment, were almost unlimited. Its first act, in July, 1950, was to send out letters to consumer, farmer, labour, industrial, mercantile and other organizations. I shall quote in exact terms the letter of invitation and the press release that relates thereto. The letter is dated Ottawa, July 7, 1950, and reads as follows: Dear Sir:
At the session of parliament just concluded the Minister of Justice announced the appointment of a committee for the purpose of studying the Combines Investigation Act. The members of the committee are the Hon. Mr. Justice J. H. MacQuarrie of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia; Dr. W. A. Mackintosh, vice-principal of Queen's university; Professor Maurice Lamontagne, assistant director of the department of economics, Laval university; and Mr. George F. Curtis, dean of the faculty of law of the university of British Columbia.
The terms of reference of the committee were given by the minister as follows:
"The terms of reference are to study, in the light of present day conditions, the purposes and methods of the Combines Investigation Act and related Canadian statutes, and the legislation and procedures of other countries, in so far as the latter appear likely to afford assistance, and to recommend what amendments, if any, should be made to our Canadian legislation in order to make it a more effective instrument for the encouraging and safeguarding of our free economy.
To avoid any possible misunderstanding, I desire to emphasize that no suggestions of amendments are being made to the committee for its consideration. It is the practice, however, to take stock of such acts from time to time to see whether any modifications should be considered in the light of administrative experience, changed conditions or otherwise. It is for such a purpose that this study has been arranged."
For its assistance in this study the committee is anxious to receive as soon as posible from organizations, firms and individuals whatever views they may wish to express upon matters within its terms of reference. In order to avoid duplication, notices of the study being made by the committee are not being sent to individual members of organizations. It would be greatly appreciated, therefore, if you would inform your affiliated organizations and individual members, where practicable, of the desire of the committee to secure as wide an expression of views as possible. The committee would welcome representations not only from organizations and members thereof but also from any person who wishes to make comments or suggestions.
Combines Legislation
Representations may be directed to particular provisions of the laws or may relate to general matters of policy.
You may recall that the royal commission on prices in their examination of restrictive business practices- gave particular attention to the practice of resale price maintenance and recommended that careful study be given to this problem from the viewpoint of its effect on price competition amongst wholesalers and retailers. In view of this the committee invites comments on this particular problem as well as on the Combines Investigation Act generally. In particular, the committee would appreciate receiving extended comments on the tentative conclusion of the royal commission on prices as to the effects of the practice upon the public interest. The matter is dealt with in Vol. I, pages 27, 28 and 41, and Vol. II, pages 256 to 259 of the report of the royal commission on prices as published by the king's printer in 1949.
All representations received by the committee will be treated as confidential to the committee, and will not be used for purposes other than those of the committee or quoted unless permission is requested and granted. Those making representations, however, may give whatever publicity to them they desire. Communications should be addressed to the committee to study the Combines Investigation Act, Justice building, Ottawa.
May I refer again to the desire of the committee to receive representations at an early date and suggest that submissions should be forwarded, wherever possible, by the early part of August.
Yours very truly,
(sgd.) J. H. MacQuarrie Chairman, committee to study the Combines Investigation Act
Then, coincident with the sending out of that invitation, there was a press release dated July 10, 1950, headed "Committee to study Combines Legislation", and reading as follows:
The committee recently appointed to study combines and related legislation has made public today the text of a letter inviting the submission of views from all sections of the Canadian public.
The letter has been sent to national organizations including consumer associations, co-operative societies, labour unions, trade associations and business and professional groups asking them and their affiliated organizations and individual members to submit briefs. The committee expresses a desire to secure as wide an expression of views as possible and indicates that it would welcome from individuals as well as from organizations whatever views they may wish to submit in this matter.
The members of the committee, as announced by the Minister of Justice-
Then the press release goes on to indicate who they are, and the terms of reference are also given.
As a result of these invitations, Mr. Speaker, the MacQuarrie committee received a considerable number of formal briefs and many informal letters from organizations and individuals, and also held many interviews in relation to those written communications. Certain organizations required more time for the preparation of their material than was at first expected, with the result that the last brief to be received did not come to the committee until December, 1950. As late as
[Stage Direction]
Combines Legislation September the MacQuarrie committee heard oral representation. I understand that they expect to hear one more representation at least on an aspect of their work not related to resale price maintenance when they meet again this month. These delays were as unavoidable as they were unanticipated. They not only consumed time in themselves but they also meant that the members, all of whom were active, busy men in their own fields, had to make the necessary arrangements to get more time away from their own heavy duties.
It therefore became clear some time ago that the MacQuarrie committee could not hope to finish its work until the end of the present calendar year at the earliest. The government, however, was of the opinion that resale price maintenance was of such significance that the MacQuarrie committee should be asked to give it priority in its work. In that connection I may say that the fact that the MacQuarrie committee itself had singled out this subject for special mention in its invitation was an indication of the importance which that committee attached to this subject. The government, therefore, asked this committee in September last to make an interim report on this aspect of its study, if it could possibly do so.
Mr. Diefenbaker:: What date was that?


Mr. Garson:: It was September 10. This
interim report was made and tabled accordingly.
I believe I should say a word concerning the term "interim" as related to this report, and stress that it refers only to the fact that it has been made before the committee has finished all of its work. But so far as resale price maintenance is concerned, the report expresses the considered views of the committee in a complete and final manner.
The views that were submitted to the MacQuarrie committee were general views upon the subject of resale price maintenance and were not expressions of opinion or representations upon a concrete proposal, much less upon draft legislation.
But now we find that the situation is greatly different. The MacQuarrie committee has reached its conclusions and has made its recommendations which are-as hon. members who have read this report know-of a most specific character. The MacQuarrie committee has recommended in effect that the practice of resale price maintenance should be prohibited. Now, therefore, there is a specific and concrete proposal upon the record.
In the light of this specific and concrete proposal the government has been strongly


urged, by many individual merchants and manufacturers and by the executives of several representative industry or trade associations, to afford them an opportunity to present their views to the government or to a parliamentary committee. The government has decided that it ought to accede to this request but that it is preferable from many standpoints that this presentation of views should take place before a joint parliamentary committee open to the public and to the press of Canada in such a way as to make the information which is presented there available to all concerned, including all the members of this house. The joint committee will therefore be directed to consider the MacQuarrie committee's interim report and to consider appropriate amendments to the Combines Investigation Act based thereon.
The study of this matter by a parliamentary joint committee, with the attention which I feel confident it will get from the press, will tend to develop a much better informed public opinion upon the matter than was possible with the MacQuarrie committee type of inquiry where confidential communications were solicited, which have great value to a committee set up on that basis but which unfortunately do not serve to educate the public. It is true that in its interim report on resale price maintenance the MacQuarrie committee went some distance towards informing public opinion of the arguments made to it for and against resale price maintenance. As hon. members will recall, it summarized these arguments in what seemed' to me to be an admirably objective and judicial manner in the body of its report, as an introduction to its own conclusions based upon these arguments. But I suggest that this summary, admirable as it is, still leaves room for a fuller treatment of the arguments pro and con in the interests of developing upon this subject a public opinion which will be as well informed as possible and which will be of great assistance, I am sure, in the administration of the legislation.
It is the hope and the expectation of the government that this joint parliamentary committee will get its work under way at the earliest possible moment and will proceed with sufficient dispatch to enable the appropriate legislation it is set up to consider to be dealt with by parliament before the end of this session, as forecast in the speech from the throne.
I therefore move this resolution without further discussion in order that the joint committee may get on with its work as soon as possible.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, the house will have listened with interest to the explanation given by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) respecting a matter that was considered to be urgent when the speech from the throne was placed before the house. I wonder why the change in a matter of a few weeks? On October 9, in the speech from.the throne, a definite promise was made:
The concern of our people over the rising cost of living resulting from international and domestic inflationary pressures is fully shared by the government. Every measure will be taken which my ministers believe will be effective in counteracting inflation without impairing our free institutions. The anti-inflationary measures already in force have checked the upward trend of prices of goods and services affected by their operation.
If we had before us the cost of living index figures for the last month or so, I think those figures might be an effective answer to the optimistic promise made on October 9. The speech from the throne continues:
The government has received an interim report from the committee studying the combines legislation recommending that suppliers of goods should be prohibited from requiring or inducing distributors to resell such goods at fixed or minimum resale prices. You will be asked to consider legislation arising out of the committee's interim report.
In place of legislation the promise is now held out to the House of Commons and to the country that the implementation of that promise is in part to consist of setting up of a committee to review the findings, as it were, of the MacQuarrie committee. Certainly the MacQuarrie committee is composed of outstanding men; they made recommendations. Surely there is no justification for the attitude of the government, in view of the fact that certain opposition has arisen to the promised legislation, to fail to give leadership and to carry into effect the optimistic promise in the speech from the throne.
Mr. Speaker, this is not a surprising course. This is leadership of the government in retreat. The minister says that the reason for delay in the general report by the MacQuarrie committee was that some of those who laid their briefs before the committee or the commission delayed until a late period in filing them. He says that those delays were unavoidable and unanticipated. So far as bringing this legislation before the House of Commons is concerned, the delay would be avoidable; and the delay was anticipated by those of us who realized some of the objections that were being taken to the legislation. I shall review some matters that have taken place in recent months that require action now. The MacQuarrie committee-and I borrow the expression from my hon. friend-has been meeting since July, 1950. Its purpose was to see what should be done to make more effective the
Combines Legislation
agency of combines legislation and thereby maintain our free economy; and during the time this committee has been sitting prices have been increasing.
My hon. friend says that changes in the law have to be made to meet changed and changing conditions. There is one condition that has not changed since July, 1950, and that is the ever-mounting inflation in this country, and the considerable degree to which many people attribute it to profiteering and exploitation that should be proceeded against under the Combines Investigation Act.
I am not going to refer to anything said in previous debates this session but when it is realized that the act is in the statute books and contains many powers that could be used, and one sees on the other hand the sporadic enforcement that has characterized the administration of this act, one begins to wonder whether or not there is any serious desire on the part of this government to use the powers that are available in the Combines Investigation Act. There have been some prosecutions. During his period of office my hon. friend has launched one or two. Fines have ranged from $10,000 to $25,000.


Mr. Stick:: What is the exact figure, not one or two?


John George Diefenbaker: I would say four prosecutions have taken place, and I think I err on the side of generosity when I give that figure. The evidence that came before the combines commissioner with respect to those prosecuted showed that they had made tremendous amounts of money at the expense of the Canadian people. The penalties represented but a small proportion of the actual advantages that have flowed to not honest businessmen but those who, desiring to exploit and take advantage, have utilized to the full the opportunities that have been available to them by reason of the lack of enforcement of the law.
My hon. friend says that the law should be brought up to date. If I read section 2 of the Combines Investigation Act aright, if any offence is being committed by those who practise price maintenance, there is available to the government under the law the power to prosecute and to convict wherever the consequence is exploitation of the public. I refer to the definition of a combine, which is to be found in section 2 of the Combines Investigation Act, as follows:
"Combine" means a combination having relation to any commodity which may be the subject of trade or commerce, of two or more persons by way of actual or tacit contract, agreement or arrangement having or designed to have the effect of (a) limiting facilities for transporting, producing, manufacturing, supplying, storing or dealing, or

Combines Legislation
(e) fixing a common price or a resale price, or a common rental, or a common cost of storage or transportation.
That is the section as it is. If what one reads be true, and resale price maintenance is taking place by agreement, there is available in the statute now the power to enforce the law.
When a discussion on prices came before parliament in 1948 the then prime minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) made this statement, as reported in Hansard at page 747:
There is a body of legislation already on the statute books of this country; but, as everyone knows, the minute an effort is made to set in motion some of this machinery, obstacles are raised from one side or another which tend to operate against speedy and thorough action.
What were those obstacles? What are the obstacles that now hold the government from acting? I have said this before and I repeat it: If there were in the Criminal Code a section which said that the penalty that a robber would receive, and that the maximum, would be 3 per cent or 4 per cent of his ill-gotten gains, would there be any danger to the prospective robber? As far as the law respecting combines is concerned, with the small penalties attendant on breaches thereof, even if the law is enforced, there is no serious incentive to live up to the law.
I hold in my hand various reports issued year after year by the commissioner of the Combines Investigation Act, pointing out the existence of the combines and international cartels. One issued in 1945 sets forth in detail the number of international cartels operating in this country to the detriment of the consumer and the destruction of the free economy to which my hon. friend made reference. How many of the international cartels named have been prosecuted since 1945? The attitude of this government was clearly revealed in December, 1948, in connection with what was done with the flour milling report. That revealed an attitude of mind, a solicitude for those who would take advantage. I have before me an explanation as to why the law was not enforced, and why the report of the combines commissioner was not carried out at that time. In a statement given in an interview to the Vancouver Province in Vancouver when the minister was there on vacation immediately after the opposition endeavoured in the strongest possible terms to condemn the attitude of the government for protecting the flour millers against prosecution by the concealment of the report, the minister explained what he called the background of the ruckus and said:
Mr. McGregor missed the point in his report.
IMr. Diefenbaker.]
He was there referring to what the companies did during the days of the war, and the promises made by the wartime prices and trade board.
A similar promise was given to the bakeries in western Canada, and Mr. Donald Gordon gave evidence to such effect in the court in Calgary. Did Mr. Justice McBride accept that explanation? Np. That was no justification, the judge concluded in his judgment. But listen to what the minister said next:
If the government had accepted the report of the combines commissioner, F. A. McGregor, and launched prosecution of milling companies there would not have been a case in fifty years where the crown would have looked so cheap.
I can think of another case where the crown looked cheaper, and that was in the dental combines prosecution. This government proceeded against eighteen dental supply companies and counsel forgot to prove that the companies were incorporated, or that the persons who had signed the documents that were placed before the court were officials of the companies who were charged. What is the next statement?
"They were just waiting for us to prosecute," said the Minister of Justice. "They would have made us look like monkeys; they would have stood us on our heads."
Well, as far as the prosecution of the dental companies was concerned, it was not its head that the government found itself on. All through the piece, from beginning to end, so far as this administration is concerned its prosecution of those who exploit unjustly, and of those who profiteer to the public detriment, has been a shadow of what was contemplated by Mr. Mackenzie King, when combines legislation was introduced by him. He gave the purpose of the law to be to assure free competition and to preserve the individual from exploitation.
I mentioned the international combines report, which concluded that there were international cartels in Canada in radio, fertilizer, glass', radio bulbs and the like; yet there has been not one prosecution since 1945 of international cartels named in the report. Year by year, a continuing issue of reports by the combines branch have found themselves pigeonholed for want of a government willing and ready to utilize the law to preserve and protect the Canadian people.
We have in the speech from the throne a courageous statement, a speech that showed what was going to be done. The courage has deserted

vacillation and evasion are substituted, and a parliamentary committee is

to be set up in regard to a small portion of the combines act, with power to report in due course.
We have had our experience with prices committees. We had one that sat and sat and sat conscientiously, and the longer it sat the higher went the prices. It graduated into a royal commission, and the prices continued to rise. Is the setting up of this committee not a vote of want of confidence in the MacQuarrie committee, on the part of the government? That committee, composed of outstanding men, called upon all those affected, including consumers and manufacturers, to send in their briefs. Has not that committee for a year and a half importuned either directly by letter or indirectly through the press asking interested parties to produce evidence regarding resale price maintenance, a subject of more than academic interest to the members of that committee?
This resolution is playing with the problem. There is confusion on every hand in our country because of the rising cost of living, confusion created as a result of continued combine reports as to wrongdoing in certain big business. And what is offered? The setting up of a committee of parliament to review what a committee has reviewed, considered and decided.
But my hon. friend argues that it decided upon information or evidence that was confidential. What difference does that make to the legality and to the weight to be given to the decision made?
The appointment of a committee will add to confusion-and more confusion in the minds of the people! I think of Shakespeare's words:
Confusion's cure lives not in these confusions.
^ It is interesting to read what the Toronto Star said on October 13-and it is a paper not too far removed from government approval. On that date it said:
The first big drop in years in consumer price levels is expected to result from the MacQuarrie commission's condemnation of the business practice of minimum price fixing.
And then it says, under the heading "Made two recommendations":
The result was two recommendations to the government . . . The move comes at a time when, generally speaking, large retailers across the country are overstocked in numerous lines of consumer goods.
Then it speaks of the steps that the Canadian government is going to take.
On October 13, one view; October 31, the same newspaper expressed another view:
Is Ottawa weakening on price-fixing ban? Sets up committee.
Combines Legislation
And then it says:
A special committee of the commons will be set up to hear representations from industry and business on the proposed banning of minimum price fixing, it was learned today.
Announcement will be made, probably by Hon. Stuart Garson, Minister of Justice, within a few days, but the decision is already being interpreted in some quarters as an indication that the government is backing down on the recommendations of the MacQuarrie commission, which said the practice is monopolistic and leads to a generally higher level of prices than would otherwise be the case.
Why have a committee? Is it to postpone action and procrastinate? Is it for the purpose of being assured that the matter cannot be brought up at this session? I think of the words of the late Colonel Ralston in 1935 when, speaking in this house, he said, "This is a snare and a delusion". A resounding promise in the speech from the throne -and this resolution a makeshift to take the place of the resounding promise.
This indeed is an example of the kind of thing that makes people suspicious of public life. If action is urgent, why postpone and hold back the legislation? Why a further investigation? Why further delay? When was the decision made to change from the promise of October 9 to the performance of today?
I say the attitude of the government is but a further admission of the fact that it has not any solution for inflation, and is in a position to make no attempt to relieve the load that rests upon people in low-income brackets, a load brought about by reason of the continuing rise in prices.
Some time ago one of the ministers said, the solution was "save, don't spend". The Minister of Justice said, "write me", in his radio broadcast of two weeks ago. I only wish, Mr. Speaker, we could see the return of letters he received in response to his request to the Canadian people to tell him whether prices are too high.
And the suggested solution that the Canadian people should save. Did the government ever think that one solution of the problem would be retrenchment on the part of the government? Yesterday morning we read of the speech of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) in Montreal, in which he said:
We are trying to reduce uneconomic or unnecessary expenditures.
And yesterday, Mr. Watson Sellar's report came out, indicating that the government is still engaged in a spending spree, and has failed to carry out the admonition to save that it so generously gives to the people of Canada.

Combines Legislation
What did Mr. Sellar state in this regard? I shall read it, from the report of Mr. Frank Swanson appearing in last night's Citizen:
Non-occupancy by government departments of rented office space in the Copeland building at the corner of Albert and Kent streets in Ottawa even though $70,000 had been spent for it was censured today by Auditor General Watson Sellar in his annual report to parliament.
He says further:
The agreements provided that the government instal and pay for interior partitions and other alterations.
Various dates were designated for rent payment the earliest being July 1, 1950, he said.
And again:
"Approximately $70,000 was spent while there was no physical occupancy by the departments for which the space was leased," he declared.
He referred too to another example of waste and extravagance-a public building at Fort Erie, the contract let for $49,836; and the final cost showed that $89,832 was added to the original contract, and without tender. Example after example of outright federal government waste is given by him. Another one is on a government contract for additions and betterments to a public building at Joliette, Quebec. The contract was let for $179,182. This is not partisanship; this is Mr. Sellar's report. He says that before construction was far advanced the original plans were changed and it was decided to have a $365,232 building. No tenders were called and the $186,000 addition was treated as an extra under the original contract. I say to the government: Physician, heal thyself; do the thing that you are asking the Canadian people to do in order to meet the onrush of rising prices -save.
Here is another example. In the 1950-51 vote there was $720,000 expended for furniture and fittings for offices in Ottawa. For furniture for the office of the chief of the general staff there was an amount of $919. For a rug and table for the quartermaster general's office there was an amount of $184, and so on. Mr. Sellar gives examples of such expenditures that indicate that the government has not yet realized that in order to meet inflation the first responsibility is the responsibility of the government not to give advice to the Canadian people but to carry out themselves their own advice-to save in all departments of government.
Prices are going up. Inflation, the greatest tax, and most unjust of all taxes, is taking Canadian people's earnings from them unjustly at a time when taxation imposed by the state is higher than it has ever been in peacetime. Our people are being taken advantage of according to the reports issued
[Mr. Diefenbaker.l
from time to time by the combines investigation branch. I should like to refer to page 246 of the price spreads commission's report, 1935. It reveals what the Combines Investigation Act should be used for, and that is not to throttle honest business, nor to prevent fair profits but to punish wrongdoing. There can be no employment in Canada without fair and reasonable profits dependent upon the degree of risk accepted by the enterpriser.
But unjust and unfair profits, the piling up of tremendous inventories, which the department of statistics reported yesterday as the largest accumulation of consumer goods in the history of our country at a time when the people are asking that they be distributed among them, is another matter altogether. The report set forth the basis upon which the act should be utilized. It said:
We suggest that practices should be prohibited which are characterized by bad faith, fraud, misrepresentation or oppression which are resorted to for the purpose of destroying competition or eliminating a competitor.
On the basis of that surely the country has a right to ask that the government utilize the powers it has under law to the end that those who would take advantage will begin to consider, in anticipation of doing so, whether or not the amount they will secure is worth the risk. Why is this resolution before the house? What is the purpose? I say the promise that the implementation of this legislation would have any serious effect in reducing the cost of living is an illusory and hypocritical way of endeavouring to take pressure off the government-the pressure exerted by the Canadian people asking for action. It is simply a means to postpone and wait and see if the predictions of the government economists that we have already arrived at the apex of price levels will be achieved shortly. Over the years they have made predictions of that kind and they have proven wrong before. On August 10, 1951, in an article by Mr. Bruce Hutchison in the Christian Science Monitor he says:
Up to now the Canadian government's assumption-[DOT]
That is the assumption that prices would be stabilized.
-has proved wrong. For some reason Canadian prices have risen to the index peak of 187-6 at the very moment when the government was most confident that they would level off and perhaps fall. Clearly the Canadian economy had contained inflationary pressures which the government's experts failed to see.
He goes on to point out that prediction after prediction has been wrong. While the Combines Investigation Act is apparently toothless, ineffective and nebulous in its results, the course taken by the government

is to raise a smoke screen regarding price maintenance in order to protect themselves from the rising feeling of antagonism and indignation of the people of our country which has been aroused because of the failure of the government to act. I should like to refer to Buchanan's Bulletin of October 12, 1951, in which that view is set forth in some detail. It says:
It has more political-
He is referring to the promised hope in this legislation of help for the Canadian people.
-than practical motivation because it is brought forward as answer to popular demand for price controls. Government is getting unpopular . . .
That is a miracle of understatement. He goes on to say.
By cracking at resale price maintenance it can make gesture of cracking at price rises which can't get it into trouble.
That has certain advantages. The government appears to be doing something. It goes through all the outward motions of doing something but the motivation is more political than practical. I mentioned the cost of living a moment ago, and while I speak the cost of living has gone up.


Mr. St. Laurent:: You should stop speaking.


John George Diefenbaker: I have received from the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) a memorandum with the information that the cost of living has now risen from 189-8 to 190-4. While the government goes through-


Mr. Knowles:: -who is a party or privy to or knowingly assists in the formation or operation of a combine within the meaning of this act . . .
If that act as it now is cannot be enforced, why not have this committee given powers to do something about revamping or rejuvenating the act in order to give it vigour and vitality in place of the pallid imitations of effective action it possesses today.
I pass this suggestion on to the Minister of Justice. Put provisions in the act so that not only will a corporation be liable to the money penalty but every director of that corporation who knowingly and to the detriment of the public enters into a combination by way of an actual or tacit agreement or an arrangement to injuriously restrain trade and commerce to operate to the detriment of the public or against the interests of the public, whether consumers, producers or others, shall himself be liable to a penalty. Let that penalty be imposed unless he can show that he expressly opposed the decision of the company that had the effect of exploiting the public.
After all, if the law is not enforced it is an invitation to wrongdoing and dishonesty. It is detrimental to be honest if the law is not enforced. Place the directors, great and powerful though they be, in the same position as anyone else who to the detriment of the Canadian people, whether individually or collectively, do things that are unlawful.
If tomorrow the message went forth from this House of Commons to every corporation -there are only one or two of them that I

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know which are actually carrying on to the detriment of the public-that a law is to be placed on the statute books to apply to directors of companies who were not able to prove that they had been opposed to the unlawful action taken by the offending corporation, that they would be personally subject to the full penalty of the law, you would find a vast improvement in the enforcement of the combines law.
Let us revamp the act. Is there anything unjust in that? Surely there is nothing much to fear when, no matter how many millions may have been taken from the Canadian people, the penalty applied to a corporation is a maximum of $25,000. Does that hurt? Does that create fear in the hearts of those who would take advantage of the law? All it does is to deprive the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) of part of what he would otherwise secure through taxes. It reduces the excessive profits of the wrongdoing by the small amount that constitutes the penalty.
If we believe in action rather than words would not such an amendment to the law result in benefits to the public that is exploited? Let us endeavour to see whether we can do something to assure a fair and proper consideration for the welfare of the Canadian people. Let us at the same time be sure that those who commit crimes against the state, whether they are members of corporations or not, will themselves be subject to the utmost rigour of the law.
Revamp the act. The cost of living is rising continually. The MacQuarrie committee has been sitting, yet the only explanation the minister can give as to why the MacQuarrie committee has not reported on necessary amendments to the combines act is that the briefs came in late. The minister is a lawyer. Has he ever conducted an appeal before an appeal court and said: "I am late with my brief; we shall have to postpone this court"?
The MacQuarrie committee has been sitting and the act remains unchanged. No recommendations have come forth from that committee except those asked for by the minister when he wrote a letter on September 10. Surely some report should have been made. If the government wanted a report it could have asked for an interim report in regard to changing the combines law. Certainly the fact is that as soon as it asked for an interim report with regard to price fixing and maintenance practices it received it immediately.
Let us bring Mr. McGregor before the committee. We might even have the minister give evidence after his statement in Vancouver when he said that Mr. McGregor did not understand the finer things, did not understand the representations that had been made

to the flour milling corporations. Let us have them both there and then we shall see who will be made a monkey of, then we shall see who will go on whose head. Let us bring in Mr. McGregor because I am sure that if his lips are unbridled, if he comes in unhobbled by any consideration other than to help the committee, he will make some revelations that will be most interesting and I am sure most helpful in suggesting effective amendments to the act.
I am not going to continue further as my time is up. If this committee is to be set up let it be a committee of both houses with powers wider than the narrow and confined one comprised in the resolution. Let there be representatives of the producers and consumers, and Mr. McGregor. He is the number one man in this business if we want to get at the facts. If the government is anxious and desirous of doing something to mobilize the opinion of the House of Commons, then widen the ambit of the resolution. Let us not have the carefully restricted term of reference, the obviously carefully restricted one of the resolution. Let us have one wide enough to enable the committee to make recommendations concerning not only resale price maintenance but the entire field of combine and monopoly legislation. As the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) said, let us bring the act up to date and remove the hobbles on action that seem to hold back the government. Let us do our part in this house to protect the Canadian people from exploitation and to preserve small businesses in this country. Let us think for once of that forgotten man, the consumer, for sometimes I believe he is the forgotten man in this country. Let us add to and amplify the resolution to the end that this committee will go about its work with the power to do something more than review what has already been reviewed by the chosen experts of the government, the MacQuarrie committee, who are entitled to the high regard and respectful tribute paid to them by the minister.
Let us empower the members of the House of Commons and the Senate on the committee to make suggestions for amending the law as for example by changing the penalty, or to restore some sections that have been removed, and add others that will give force and vigour to this legislation. Having that view, which is shared by the members of His Majesty's opposition, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green):
That the resolution be amended by deleting from the first paragraph thereof the last clause, namely, "and to consider appropriate amendments to the Combines Investigation Act based thereon," and substitute the following, "and to consider generally the Combines Investigation Act and to recommend

appropriate necessary amendments thereto which will assure protection against exploitation of small businesses and consumers."


Stuart Sinclair Garson: Before the hon. member takes his seat, I wonder if he would permit a question?


John George Diefenbaker: What is the nature of the question?


Stuart Sinclair Garson: The hon. member said that there were only one or two corporations of which he knew that were acting detrimentally to the public. I wonder if he would name them?


John George Diefenbaker: I accept that, Mr. Speaker, and they are named in the combines report given by Mr. McGregor, to which apparently the Minister of Justice has paid little attention.


Mr. Speaker:: It will be my responsibility to determine whether or not this amendment is in order. It occurs to me that the amendment widens the terms of the proposed resolution. If that is so, I am rather doubtful whether I can allow the amendment to stand. The other day a similar question arose when we were discussing certain railway legislation. The hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Black) moved, seconded by the member for Queens (Mr. McLure), an amendment which would have referred a question to a committee which had been set up with certain specific powers. At that time I ruled that I could not allow the amendment to stand because the committee to which it was proposed the question be sent was not empowered to deal with the question.
If any hon. members desire to speak to the matter, I am prepared to hear them.


Mr. Fulion:: Although I have not had an opportunity of considering the question, I should like to direct Your Honour's attention to the fact that the subject matter of the two resolutions is quite different. In the case to which Your Honour has just referred we were dealing with a motion to refer a bill, which had been considered and approved in principle by the house, to a special committee which had been already set up for the purpose of considering that bill. The amendment moved at that time was to refer the matter to a different committee. The ruling, as I recall it, was that the committee referred to in the amendment would have no power to consider the subject matter which it was proposed to refer to it.
. In this ease, we are not suggesting a different committee. The same committee as suggested by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) is left in the amendment moved by the member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). All that is suggested at this stage is that before anything has been decided by the house-I wish
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to emphasize that, because in the other case certain things had already been decided by the house-the committee suggested by the minister should have greater scope for consideration than the reference would give it.
The other point of difference, which I think is relevant here, is that specific legislation was being considered. At this time there is no specific legislation but a general reference on a matter which has not yet been before the house. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Lake Centre, therefore, does not create new matter or bring new matter before the house in the sense in which I think Your Honour felt the previous motion would have done. I suggest the two circumstances are entirely different, and that this motion is clearly in order.


Stuart Sinclair Garson: I suggest to Your Honour that the pith and substance of the resolution which is before the house is that the report of the MacQuarrie committee upon the subject only of resale price maintenance be considered by a committee, and that the committee consider also proper amendments based upon that report. In this debate it has been made clear that the MacQuarrie committee is now considering other aspects of the Combines Investigation Act, and that the amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), if accepted, would not amend the pith and substance of the resolution before the house but would introduce a matter which is altogether foreign to it. If he were to confine his amendment to striking out the word "appropriate", or to some other amendment of the powers that are to be granted to this committee as part of the pith and substance of the original resolution, I can quite understand that his motion would be in order. But I submit that the resolution he has moved deals with a subject matter entirely foreign to the pith and substance of the resolution, and that it therefore should be ruled out of order.


Mr. Drew:: Mr. Speaker, I think the two cases that have been referred to are on entirely different ground. Reference was made to an earlier decision that certain amendments proposed to the motion related to the railway bills then before the house were out of order. I submit they were not on the same basis as the amendment now before the house. I would ask Your Honour to consider the fact that the only question that arises in this case is whether you should permit an amendment which will refer to the committee the consideration of amendments to the Combines Investigation Act without restriction, or should take the position that the restrictions imposed by the motion now

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before the house prevent any widening of that motion by an amendment. I would point out that as it is within your authority to consider the purpose as well as the effect of amendments of this kind, it should be recognized that what is now being done is to open up new inquiry into a subject which had earlier been referred to the MacQuarrie committee. What had been referred to the MacQuarrie committee was the subject of possible amendments to the Combines Investigation Act, without any restriction. Now the government has indicated that it has in effect repudiated the MacQuarrie committee. Therefore, unless there is to be a great waste of time of those members of the house who make up this committee as well as of those who are invited here, with that repudiation of the MacQuarrie committee and the setting up of a new committee of the house to deal with the very things which were referred to the MacQuarrie committee, I submit that it is not only in order but it is most proper that the reference should be as wide as the original reference to the MacQuarrie committee.
I submit that this amendment in no way varies the subject matter before the house, but that it simply removes a restriction which will limit the effectiveness of a committee and actually mean that members of this house will be wasting their time to a substantial extent, in view of the fact that we know the MacQuarrie committee is no longer being taken as the body which will advise the government in this respect.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, I think the loose use of language that we have experienced today is something rather unusual in this house in which, nevertheless, we sometimes find language used fairly loosely. Any suggestion that the MacQuarrie committee is being repudiated is, of course, absolutely groundless. There is no suggestion of that kind.
At this moment, Mr. Speaker, you have for consideration a point of order which you yourself suggested. Here I think the only question is: Is this amendment something which puts forward a substantive proposal that, under the ordinary rules of the house, cannot be made without notice? That is the question that Your Honour must decide. There has been notice of a motion to set up a committee to consider the MacQuarrie report and appropriate amendments to the Combines Investigation Act based thereon. This is an amendment which would say to the committee: Not only will you consider the MacQuarrie report; you will consider the whole Combines Investigation Act, and you will make recommendations on the whole Combines Investigation Act. Is that something which, under the

ordinary rules of the house, could not be done without notice? If it is, under citation 397, I think it is, of Beauchesne, it is not something that can be done by amendment. If it is not something that would require notice, it can be done by amendment. Citation 397 in Beauchesne's second edition reads as follows:
An amendment must not raise any question which, by the rules of the house, can only be raised by a distinct motion after notice.
Your Honour has to decide whether or not, according to the rules of the house, the setting up of a committee to consider the whole of the Combines Investigation Act and to suggest amendments with respect to the whole Combines Investigation Act is something which would require notice. If it is, it cannot be appended to this motion as an amendment. If Your Honour comes to the conclusion that it is so intimately connected with the other matter that it can be done without notice, then it would be in order.


George Alexander Drew: Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to extend the argument in regard to the matter you raised, but I propose to take up the statement that loose expressions have been used. I submit that no loose expressions have been used. This government, in the speech from the throne-which is the statement of the government-indicated to this house that they were acting upon the MacQuarrie report. We had been given every reason to believe that the government were acting on the MacQuarrie report, until these last few days. I submit that there is only one correct expression, and that is that the government has repudiated the MacQuarrie report.


Mr. Green:: Mr. Speaker, may I suggest one further argument for your consideration. The material part of the resolution as presented by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) reads as follows:
. . . and to consider appropriate amendments to the Combines Investigation Act based thereon.
That may or may not involve every single section in the Combines Investigation Act. I suggest that the amendment moved by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefen-baker) is merely making it clear that the whole act can be considered. If we are to have a ruling that such an amendment is out of order, it would be practically impossible to amend a resolution of this kind.


Mr. Speaker:: I think hon. members have explained their position quite clearly. As to whether the amendment is in order, the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton) has drawn my attention to the fact that a previous ruling this session referred to an amendment which would concern a committee which already had been set up and was considering other

legislation. However, I based my ruling on that occasion on the fact that the committee which had been set up had certain powers, that it did not have power to deal with the amendment proposed, and that it could not deal with matters which were beyond the powers set forth in the resolution.
The Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) has stated that the amendment contains provisions which are foreign to the pith and substance of the main resolution. Although the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) did not entirely agree with that statement, he said the purpose of the amendment was to have the Combines Investigation Act considered without restrictions. In other words the amendment widens considerably the terms of the proposed resolution. The Prime Minister has raised a question as to whether the terms of a resolution, of which notice has been given, can be widened by amendment. So far as the Minister of Justice and the leader of the opposition are concerned, I think they are in agreement that the proposed amendment does widen the provisions of the original resolution. The hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra has questioned that, but I am inclined to agree; in fact I must come to the conclusion that the amendment does widen the terms of the original resolution. Whether or not it is desirable that the Combines Investigation Act should be considered fully at this time is not for me to decide. The only question I have to decide is whether the amendment is in order in accordance with the rules of this house. Standing order 45 refers to resolutions for the appointment of committees only after notice. I would refer hon. members to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, third edition, citation 546. When I read this citation I think hon. members will agree that I cannot allow the amendment to stand because it does widen the terms of the original resolution. I might add that if the minister himself proposed an amendment which would widen the terms of the resolution I could not allow it to stand unless it was with the unanimous consent of the house. I will now read citation 546:
When the house is considering a motion, of which notice has been given, for the appointment of a select committee, a member cannot move in amendment that the committee be given wider powers than those which were set down in the notice.
Accordingly I must rule that the amendment is not in order.


John George Diefenbaker: With the utmost respect I appeal against Your Honour's ruling.


Mr. Speaker:: Those in favour of sustaining the Speaker's ruling will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.
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Mr. Speaker:: Those against will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And some members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: Call in the members.
Mr. Speaker put the question as follows:
On the motion of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) to set up a committee to study combines legislation, and the like, the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver -Quadra (Mr. Green) moved:
That the resolution be amended by deleting from the first paragraph thereof the last clause, namely- "and to consider appropriate amendments to the Combines Investigation Act based thereon", and substitute the following:- "and to consider generally the Combines Investigation Act and to recommend appropriate necessary amendments thereto which will assure protection against exploitation of small businesses and consumers."
I ruled the amendment out of order, in that it purported to confer on the committee wider powers than those set down in the original motion. From my ruling the hon. member for Lake Centre and others appealed.


Mr. Graydon:: I was paired with the
Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson). Had I voted I would have voted against Your Honour's ruling.


Mr. Angus Maclnnis (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, the motion of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) now before us is, in part:
That a joint committee of both houses of parliament be appointed to consider the interim report of the committee appointed to study combines legislation, tabled in the House of Commons Friday, October 12,	1951; and to consider appropriate
amendments to the Combines Investigation Act based thereon.
For various reasons I am going to try to keep pretty close to the question at issue in this debate. One reason is- that I have only a limited time, and I am not a fast talker. Let me say first of all that our main objection to the resolution is that it delays action upon a question that has been before committees of parliament and committees in this country for a quarter of a century. There is nothing we can find out about resale price maintenance that we do not know now. Because of that we believe the proper thing for the Minister of Justice would have been to introduce the legislation forecast in the speech from the throne, and then leave it to the House of Commons to decide what should be done with it. The matter of resale price maintenance is not altogether a question of the effect it has on the cost of living. Even if prices were falling I think there is sufficient evidence before us to indicate that resale price maintenance should be declared illegal. From the evidence before us in reports from parliamentary committees and royal commissions I think I can prove that in so far as it can be proved.

However, from the point of view of the cost of living, I think the action of the government at the present time is a terrific let-down to the people of this country. Little or nothing has been done since the end of the war, since prices began rising, or in any case since the committee on prices was appointed in 1948, and there was hope that some small relief might be coming. Let me draw the attention of the house to the reference to this matter in the speech from the throne. I shall not quote the whole two paragraphs, but only sufficient to show how the government saw things on October 9. The speech said:
The concern of our people over the rising costs of living resulting from international and domestic inflationary pressures is fully shared by the government.
The second paragraph reads in part:
The government has received an interim report from the committee studying the combines legislation recommending that suppliers of goods should be prohibited from requiring or inducing distributors to resell such goods at fixed or minimum resale prices.
It is clear that it was the intention of the government to introduce legislation to that end. I need only quote the concluding words of the speech by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne. He said, as recorded at page 41 of Hansard:
That is the situation; and again I can say that as regards immediate additional measures to curb inflation, while others may develop, the only one we are prepared to submit at this time is the one that will arise out of this report of the combines committee with respect to resale prices.
Then he went on to say:
I do not think that is going to have a very substantial effect on the index of the cost of living.
I agree that it would have no great effect. It might have some, but it would have no great effect on the cost of living. However, the people of this country were hoping that something might be done. Various parliamentary committees and royal commissions appointed by the government have drawn attention to resale price maintenance, and have recommended that the practice should be made illegal. Now the government is going to appoint another committee. We of this group are not going to agree to any further stalling in this matter, and we do not care from where the attempts to stall come.
The purpose of the proposed committee, as I have stated, is to study the interim report of the MacQuarrie committee, and to make recommendations with respect to legislation. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) quoted the terms of reference of that committee, and I do not need to do that. He also mentioned that the government considered the matter

of resale price maintenance so important that it asked the MacQuarrie committee to make an interim report on the subject to the House of Commons. That report was made. This was the approach of the MacQuarrie committee to the question of resale price maintenance. In the introduction to the interim report which I have in my hand, I find the following:
By what standards should resale price maintenance he judged a desirable or an undesirable practice? They can be suggested in simple form by two sets of questions. First, does the system place the determination of prices, which is the mutual concern of producers and consumers, under social control either through competition or public regulation or does it set up a system of control by private law or agreement? Does it prevent the consumer from exercising his full influence in determining what services he is willing to pay for and what services he deems too expensive? In brief, does the system facilitate or restrict competition?
I think the answer to that is clear. I continue:
Second, how does the maintenance of resale prices affect prices, production, distribution and consumption? Does it promote efficiency in the economic system providing the consumer with the goods and services he requires at the least necessary prices? Does it direct adequate but no more than adequate resources to the distributive system? This is the standard of economic efficiency.
After studying the question from that approach the MacQuarrie committee proposed two simple amendments. I say they are simple. They are simple and direct. When the government received them it intended to introduce legislation in the house to put them into effect. What happened? During another debate I asked whose still small voice it was that spoke to the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew) and induced him to change his attitude on price control. I now ask whose was the still small voice that whispered in the collective ear of the government and resulted in the Minister of Justice deciding to give us another committee instead of introducing a bill as was intended? What evidence can we hear that has not already been heard with respect to this matter? In the introduction to the interim report the MacQuarrie committee had this to say:
As indicated above, the committee received a great many briefs, nearly all of which made some reference to resale price maintenance. They reveal divergent opinions on the subject. Although there are some notable exceptions, in general the associations representing manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers favoured resale price maintenance.
May I point out that these are the people who are everlastingly complaining about government bureaucrats setting prices, about government interference with the ordinary economic principles of business; but here they themselves, because they have control in their hands, want effective control of prices, and they have been getting it. It
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appears that they are going to continue to get it until there is a government in this country with enough courage to put a stop to it. I continue:
On the contrary, co-operatives, labour unions, farmers' and consumers' associations expressed opposition to the practice.
If we set up a committee the same people who appeared before the MacQuarrie committee and stated they were in favour of price maintenance and the same people who stated they were opposed to price maintenance will appear before us and say the same things. Where will we be then?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Another royal commission.


Angus MacInnis: Perhaps we will have
another royal commission. The Minister of Justice has already given us the names of the members of the MacQuarrie committee, but I should like to repeat them. The chairman is Mr. Justice MacQuarrie of the supreme court of Nova Scotia. The other members are Dr. W. A. Mackintosh, who is now president of Queen's university; Professor Maurice Lamontagne, of Laval university, and Dean George F. Curtis, of the law faculty of the university of British Columbia. A justice of the supreme court of one of the provinces, two learned professors and the head of the law department of another university, and they proposed two simple amendments to this government; now the Minister of Justice brings in a resolution to set up another committee to consider those two simple amendments.
Let us see what the Minister of Justice had to say on this matter. He made a radio address in "The Nation's Business" series on October 16, 1951, just a little over two weeks ago, and referring to the appointment of this committee he said in part:
We did this because it seemed advisable, after twenty-five years of operation, to have the combines law reviewed in the light of experience and of the changes that had occurred in our commercial practices. The committee was given unlimited authority to recommend any amendments which it thought would make the law a more effective instrument for encouraging and safeguarding our free economy.
The committee proposed two simple amendments. What was done with them? They are being referred to another committee. The report continues:
The committee's general conclusion is that the enforcement of minimum resale prices is contrary to the public interest and should be forbidden.
The committee specifically recommends that it should be made an offence for a manufacturer or other supplier:
1.	To recommend or prescribe minimum resale prices for his products;
2.	To refuse to sell, to withdraw a franchise or to take any other form of action as a means of enforcing minimum resale prices.

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In other words the committee decided that the time had come when private interests in this country should not be administering a private code of law from which there was no appeal to the courts of the land. The Minister of Justice is not sure he agrees, and he refers it to a committee. The minister went on to say:
May I say In conclusion to my listeners that if you or your friends believe that prices are being held up by practices which seem to be contrary to the combines law, do not hesitate to write to the combines investigation commissioner in Ottawa and ask him to look into the matter for you. He is provided with a competent staff for just this purpose, and as a citizen you are entitled to his assistance. If in this connection you think I can be of any help, by all means write to me.
The thing the minister should have said was, "By all means write me and I will refer it to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, or I will refer it to a committee." By all means write to the Minister of Justice. I should like to quote from the report of the royal commission on prices which I believe was presented on March 18, 1949. The commission was set up on July 8, 1948, and gave considerable time-it cost considerable money also-to the study of resale price maintenance. On page 258 the following appears:
Resale price maintenance has been dealt with in a number of investigations under the Combines Investigation Act, but usually in conjunction with other restrictive practices. It was the sole issue in one inquiry, that into the Proprietary Articles Trade Association. Two reports were published, in 1926 and 1927, in which conclusions were expressed that the public interest was detrimentally affected. The Proprietary Articles Trade Association was disbanded shortly after the Anal report was published. The same conclusion was reached in the following investigations which dealt with certain aspects of the problem: tobacco, 1938, dental supplies, 1947, optical goods, 1948, and bread in western Canada, 1948.
With all that evidence before him, and after having appointed a committee made up of outstanding (Citizens, some of them high in the legal profession, the Minister of Justice has the effrontery to come to this house, after having told the people of Canada that the government would give effect to the recommendations, and move to refer this matter to yet another committee. Someone said that the report of the MacQuarrie committee has been repudiated. I believe in effect that it has been repudiated. In any case not much importance is being given to it. I would think that there are good reasons why these gentlemen should resign their membership in that committee. It must be remembered that they are only beginning their work. They have to deal with many other aspects of the Combines Investigation Act. If every recommendation they make to the government is going to be

referred to another committee, what confidence can the government have in the judgment of that committee? It is simply a ridiculous situation.
Let me give now a number of quotations from the report of the royal commission on prices in 1949. I have already referred to it in connection with this matter. I shall quote from page 27, volume I:
During our inquiry we tried to ascertain whether there has been any marked growth of restrictive business practices during the postwar period and whether the effects of these practices on competition had played a major role in raising prices.
Among the industries on which we report, we found a number where conditions were highly competitive. A good example was the primary livestock industry, in which there are a very large number of producers, no one of whom handles more than a small fraction of the total output. On the other hand, we found a number of industries where competitive forces were limited because of the small number of firms in such field. For instance, there are only three firms in Canada manufacturing primary fertilizer materials and the very high capital investment required for this industry makes it difficult for new firms to enter this field. Another example occurs in primary textiles-
I understand that the textile industry of this country is highly protected by tariffs, among other things.
-where a few big firms dominate the cotton industry and where the three producers of the three types of synthetic yarns manufacture the entire Canadian output.
Then on page 28:
Resale price maintenance, like other forms of restrictive practices, does offer what appears to the manufacturer and distributor to be a happy relief from the unending struggle against the harsh correctives of the free market system.
I have said time and time again in this house that no one in this country believes in competition, that is for himself. People believe in it for the other fellow, of course. Everyone who can get away from the "harsh correctives of the free market system" will get away. If this government believes in free enterprise, and it says it does; if manufacturers in this country believe in free enterprise, and they say they do, there is one thing this government can do to see that industry in this country is free. It can prevent such practices as resale price maintenance-and that is only one of several kinds of unfair sale practices-from being continued. It cannot be done by merely referring this matter to another committee.
The prices commission report continues:
But the solution we think is illusory. It not only vitiates the spirit of enterprise by which all commercial and industrial life is nourished, it deprives the consumer of his right to seek out and patronize the more efficient distributors, namely, those who over a period of time can offer goods for sale at prices lower than their competitors.

Underproduction may also result where there are only a few firms in the field and the spur of competition is not very strong. An example of this may be seen in the primary cotton textiles industry, where production has been decreasing since the war.
We hear in speeches made all over this country, and even in this house, that what this country needs is more production. But if more production is not profitable to the textile industry, for instance, you are not going to get more production. There will be just as much production as is profitable to the owners of industry, as long as a few industries have control. For years we have been telling the members of this house that today it is not a question of control or no control; it is a question of who is going to exercise the control, the manufacturers and wholesalers or the government, which at least has a responsibility to the people of this country. There is one other quotation from this report that I should like to give the house. If the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) has not read it, then he should read it. If he has read it he should read it again. It is found on page 41:
Throughout our inquiry we have been impressed by the degree to which individual manufacturers fix the resale prices of their products and so narrow the area in which price competition amongst wholesalers and retailers is operative. In view of the extension of this practice, we recommend that the combines investigation commission give careful study to this problem with a view to devising measures to deal with it.
Evidently the combines people did not have a sufficient staff to deal with this matter, or the Minister of Justice or the government-I do not want to restrict it too much to the Minister of Justice-did not have confidence in the Combines Investigation Act staff. They wanted to get a new opinion. They obtained a new opinion, and that new opinion recommended simple legislation which the government was going to put on the statute books until they heard the master's voice.
Let me draw your attention to another report. This is the report of the 1935 royal commission on price spreads. The question of price maintenance was not dealt with under that heading to any extent. In my opinion the practice did not become prevalent until some time later. On page 228 the commission has something to say about competitive practices in the retail trade:
Whether or not certain practices are unfair cannot be based solely on the opinions of a single trade or of those who believe themselves to be injured parties. The only basis upon which business practices can be classed as unfair is in relation to the public interest. If certain practices can be shown clearly to be against the public good, they should be condemned as unfair even if they benefit certain trade groups. On the other hand, practices which
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benefit the public, even though they work a hardship on some groups, cannot be classed as unfair merely to protect such minorities.
I have received, as no doubt many other members have, many letters opposing legislation forecast in the speech from the throne. I wish I had known earlier that the government was not going to do anything about it, because I might have saved myself a little political opposition and a considerable amount of dictation. But I did think the government would do something about it. They said so, and who am I to doubt that they would? In reply to these letters I therefore said that it was my intention to support this legislation but I am not stating definitely until I see the bill. I am glad I had the sense to safeguard myself at least to that extent. The amazing thing in connection with nearly all these letters was that those writing them did not realize that they were not free businessmen carrying on their own business as they saw fit. As to these items of their business, they are merely the agents of the manufacturers, selling on commission. Yet they talk about this free country of ours whose people the socialists are going to put in strait-jackets, when every one of them is in a strait-jacket now and has not sense enough to know it.


Mr. Sinclair:: Page the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Thatcher).


Angus MacInnis: Let us now get back to the report of the MacQuarrie committee.


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear.


Angus MacInnis: The hon. member says "hear, hear"; but the government does not want to have anything to do with the committee's recommendations. All they want to do is refer them to a committee. I want to draw the attention of the house to the committee's views, and I quote from page 18 of the report:
Resale price maintenance, to be effective, requires some method of enforcement. If a manufacturer merely indicates a resale price but makes no provision and takes no step to enforce it, then he has no real control over his distributors. However, when measures of enforcement are involved, resale price maintenance establishes a private system of law allowing no appeal to the courts of justice, as it is clearly shown in the British white paper.
It seems to me that what this house has to decide and what this government should decide is not whether this measure has the effect either of raising or lowering prices, but whether these people have set up private courts of law in which they themselves are the sole judges. That is the question for free people-and I assume that we are still free- to discuss and to decide in this house.

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The committee gave this quotation from a statement on resale price maintenance, from a British board of trade white paper:
It is worth noting, too, that a trader who, by charging too little for his goods, incurs these penalties at the hands of a trade association (or manufacturer) has no recourse to any higher authority: by contrast, a trader who charges too much and is proceeded against by the state, under price-control laws,-
And I would ask hon. members to note this: -can always appeal to a higher court.
When you have government-imposed price controls, if you think you are not getting a fair deal you have an appeal to the courts; but when the matter is under the control of private manufacturers you have no appeal at all. As a matter of fact, you cannot open your mouth; for if you do, they stop supplying their goods. The quotation continues:
The penal proceedings which may have the effect of driving a shopkeeper out of his trade and which are directed not to the maintenance of a recognized standard or code of behaviour generally accepted as necessary in the public interest, but solely to the enforcement of a particular trade policy of questionable merit, take place behind closed doors and without any supervision by the courts or by parliament.
I wish that statement would sink into the minds of cabinet ministers and private members of this house. I have one more quotation. It is found on page 19:
Finally, it should not be forgotten that, to the extent that resale price maintenance brings more rigid and higher prices, it contributes to the instability of production and the reduction of sales, results which serve neither the interests of manufacturers nor general welfare.
There you have the point of view of the committee; indeed it is under that heading in the MacQuarrie interim report. Does the government accept that, or does it not? If it does not accept it, it should tell the MacQuarrie committee to go home and apply themselves to work that they are competent to perform.
In the general conclusions of the MacQuarrie committee are set forth, as I say, two simple recommendations:
The committee, therefore, recommends that it should be made an offence for a manufacturer or other supplier:
1.	To recommend or prescribe minimum resale prices for his products;
2.	To refuse to sell, to withdraw a franchise or to take any other form of action as a means of enforcing minimum resale prices.
Why any Minister of Justice, any government or any parliament should refer that kind of recommendations to another committee is simply beyond my understanding. The recommendations are so simple, so direct and, I think, so much in line with what every member of the government must believe, that
(Mr. Maclnnis.]
it just amazes one to see the government balking at putting before this House of Commons so simple a matter.
As I have already pointed out, this question has been under study in this country for a quarter of a century, and it is time we finished with it and decided the matter. We should either decide that resale price maintenance is a perfectly proper business method, or we should decide that it is not a proper business method and pass legislation to stop it. Let us see what we have had in the past two years. We had a parliamentary committee. We had a royal commission. Then we had this MacQuarrie committee of outstanding Canadian citizens. Numerous studies have been made by the combines investigation commission. Now we are to have another study, this time by a joint committee. In a recent issue of The Montrealer there was an item which I am taking the liberty of paraphrasing-and I did not change it a great deal-as follows:
The government laboured and produced a board.
The board laboured and produced a committee.
The committee laboured and produced a subcommittee.
The subcommittee laboured and produced a recommendation.
And the recommendation was referred to a joint committee.
If I were speaking in biological terms I believe I could say that at least we have reached the stage where we should have something, even though most of the committee, I suppose, are getting well on in years. But unfortunately it is not a biological matter. We shall have to appoint another committee to find that out.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Refer it to the Senate
members of the committee.


Angus MacInnis: If the committee on divorce had nothing else to do they could attend to it. It seems to me it was the intention of the government to bring in legislation to give effect to the recommendations of the MacQuarrie committee. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce had a meeting in Quebec. They passed a resolution urging delay in this matter, and next day the resolution in the name of the Minister of Justice appeared in Votes and Proceedings. I am not of course suggesting that there is any connection between what took place at the convention of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the appearance of the resolution on the order paper, but I must draw to the attention of the house the fact that it is a rather interesting coincidence. There is definitely an indication of his master's voice in what has taken place. I do not think, sir, that what this house or the country requires at this time is another committee, even if

it is a joint committee. As I have fully and clearly demonstrated, we have all the information on this matter that we need to take the action that was proposed by the MacQuarrie committee. What is needed at this time is a government that would have the courage to protect the small people of this country. We cannot get that through another committee.


Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, the people of this country were led to believe that the government really and truly meant business when in the speech from the throne itself two clauses were found as follows:
The concern of our people over the rising cost of living resulting from international and domestic inflationary pressures is fully shared by the government. Every measure will be taken which my ministers believe will be effective in counteracting inflation without impairing our free institutions. The anti-inflationary measures already in force have checked the upward trend of prices of goods and services affected by their operation.
The people of the country had good reason to expect vigorous action on the part of the government to take care of these two situations. Thus far the people have been bitterly disappointed, because they have not seen the vigorous action. All they have seen are indications of a timorous diffidence on the part of the government to try to do anything about this whole situation. It cannot be described in any terms other than timorous diffidence. The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) described it in picturesque words as leadership in retreat. Perhaps that is true. It sounded good, and perhaps fixed the situation pretty well. I wonder just what the people are thinking, and I am'going to quote briefly from two editorials from widely separated sources. If I just quoted from the editorial in the Financial Post of October 13, 1951, it might not mean very much. I presume there would be those who would say at once "Well, that is from the master's voice". I am not sure, but I am going to quote it just the same, and then I shall go right out to the grass roots, right out amongst the people in the farthest and most remote places. This is what the Financial Post had to say about the very matter that we are discussing today:
The government's avowed intention of legislating on resale price arrangements is not impressive.
Well, as the hon. member for Lake Centre would say, that is a real understatement. It certainly is. The editorial continues:
It is true that the high cost of living is the problem uppermost in the popular mind. But it looks very much as if the government is going to make a big show of "doing something" about the high cost of living by tilting against resale price agreements.
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Then they go on, Mr. Speaker, to explain some of the resale price agreements, and they finish up in this way:
Actually in Canada most of the "price maintained" products are in industries where competition between different brands is sharpest, hence where the effort has been most strenuous to keep prices down.
So this move, if described as a method of hitting high prices, is just eyewash.
The second reason this plan is objectionable is that it can't be enforced-not even reasonably well, either in letter or in spirit. And laws that can't be well enforced both in letter and in spirit are better never passed. They are thus merely corrupting to the governors and the governed.
That is the opinion of the people who edit and manage the Financial Post down here in eastern Canada. I now want to go out into my own country, perhaps as far away from Ottawa as one could get, and find out the reactions of the people. I am going to quote from the Peace River Record-Gazette of October 25, an editorial under the heading: "Is price fixing a red herring in Canada?" This is what the editorial says:
Considerable publicity has been given of late to two matters of general interest to the person who pays the bills, namely, price fixing and cost of living. To date nothing has been done about price fixing, although some action has been promised, while in the matter of cost of living anything that has been done does not appear to be very effective. All of which leads us to question the sincerity of the federal government in the matter and causes us to wonder whether the furore about price fixing is not being brought before the public in an effort to confuse the issue and draw fire from the cost of living question.
Anyone who tries to solve the cost of living muddle is in for a busy time, for immediately they are faced with the question of why prices are going up and labour and management point accusing fingers at each other. On the other side of the fence the government hesitates to put into force new regulations which in turn necessitate more civil servants and additional cost, not to mention the cost of subsidies which the people through their government would have to pay.
The question of price fixing now occupies the centre of the stage and likewise proves intriguing. It would seem the government has timed things neatly in that the findings of the recent combines hearing against western bakeries coincides with the government's attack on price fixing. Any query on price fixing must include the question of who gets hurt most if price fixing does not exist; by price fixing is meant the setting of retail prices for specific zones by the manufacturer, with the price limited to the figure set. When the market is going up the public is protected from those who would raise the price sky high, while when prices drop the merchant is given protection against price cutters. Whether this principle is in the best interests of the nation's economy must be considered, taking into account the consumer and the retailer.
Anyone whose memory can recall events of a few years ago will remember the days when price cutting was the order and merchants cried out for some semblance of law and order in the matter of prices.
As a result we have provincial legislation dealing with the matter as to the floor on such price cuts. It would appear some of the manufacturers and retail industries are being used in an effort to

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becloud the general issue of prices and the cost of living, and it would be well for our members of parliament to try and study the matter from a long-" range viewpoint, for such laws should not be changed by governments to suit particular conditions with which they are faced.
I quote this article to show what the people of Canada are thinking about the government's inaction today in the matter of high living costs and prices. If you wish to find out what they are thinking you have to get right back among the people, the common ordinary folk. The editorial I quoted from the Peace River Record-Gazette appeared in a paper that does not support me or my party. It tries to remain independent in its views. They are expressing, however, exactly what the people of this country think about the latest move on the part of the government, which appears in the resolution now before the house.
I leave it at that for the moment. The resolution we are considering does call for a joint committee to study the report and recommendations of another committee, namely the MacQuarrie committee. When a proposal like this is made by the government-and, by the way, such proposals have been made more frequently of late than I have known for some time-it always leads me to believe that the government is stalling for time. I believe there is every evidence in the present situation that it is stalling for time. I do not know what their reasons are. Those reasons are best known to themselves, and I am hoping the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) will let us in on some of those reasons before the debate is concluded. My genial friend sits over there and smiles back. I think that is wonderful; generally I applaud when he does that. He does not become angry at these onslaughts. Just the same, however, we would like to see him rise in his place and tell us what have been some of the reasons for this stalling. Let him take us into his confidence. Let us see behind the scenes so that we may know what has been going on.
Whatever the cause may be, the course the government is now taking cannot be interpreted as anything other than a repudiation of the MacQuarrie committee's report. I think the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) must have been pretty close to right when he made that statement. Otherwise we would have had here today a bill instead of a proposal for a committee. Surely on a matter so important as to be included in the speech from the throne, and promising definitely that members of the House of Commons would have before them at this session legislation dealing with this whole price-fixing situation, members of the house ought to have been able to look
rair. Low.]
forward with confidence to such legislation being brought before us at an early date. But what do we get? We get only a proposal for another committee wherein members of this house and of the other place would study the MacQuarrie committee's report, which is a rehash of a great many other reports and investigations that have gone on for years.
How in the world are we ever going to reach any termination of these things? How can we get action in that way? The resolution certainly does not foreshadow any legislation at all. It will simply mean a long drawn out series of hearings and discussions from which, of course, nothing much by way of corrective action can possibly be expected.
On the other hand it may be necessary to have changes in the manner and method of merchandising in Canada. I do not think anyone doubts that at all. One could take all afternoon discussing possible changes. Surely, however, the government must know by this time where there is price fixing that is contrary to the public interest. Surely, with all the investigations that have been carried on, with all the commissions and committees that have dealt with this matter over the years, the government ought to know where today there is price fixing that is in restraint of free trade. To say that what we need is a committee is just to make a mockery of parliament. It puts us in the position of grade III school children. We are given something just to occupy our time. I think that is most reprehensible at a time like this, when the people of this country want action. I do not think it is becoming on the part of any minister of the crown to ask the house simply to degenerate into a bunch of school children; not for one second.
If committees in the past have been of any use at all, then the government should now have before it well defined legislation designed to correct the situation. If there were some areas in which they have been uncertain, I cannot understand why they would delay, why they did not come right out and say, "We are not certain that we can frame legislation which will cover the whole field of resale price maintenance, and do it satisfactorily." For example, why did they not come out and say, "We have discovered some difficulty in bringing in this legislation, because certain representations have been made to us indicating that perhaps resale price maintenance by agreement between manufacturers and retailers does result in keeping prices down, and we are faced with this problem in attempting legislation that will adequately and fairly cover the situation". Probably the government has come to the conclusion that there are certain

instances where price maintenance does benefit the general consumer in Canada. I . am sure I could put my finger on a number of them. I am sure that if all these agreements were to be abolished we would see an upward trend in the prices of a great many things. I do not think there is any question about that.
But why does not the government come clean and tell us that it is not yet certain? It would indicate that they have not been doing their homework; I do not think there is any doubt about it. All the information is there before them, and they could have studied it. I believe the delay, and the appearance of this resolution before the house today, indicate only one thing; that is, that the government is not greatly concerned about this whole business of prices and the cost of living. What else can we conclude from what has happened?
I think that legislation is very important. I do not want to repeat the ground covered so well by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) and the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis). I find myself going along with them, and in sympathy with what they said; and they said it much better than I could. The hon. member for Lake Centre, with his rapier-like methods, was able to put the Minister of Justice (Mr. Gar-son) right on tenterhooks. I do not think that can be doubted. And I am going to be interested to hear what the minister has to say in reply. I do not want to multiply those words interminably, but I do say it is necessary for us to speak the mind of the people we represent. I know what my people think about such legislation. They are calling it a red herring. They are calling it a deliberate method of sidestepping necessity for action.
In my judgment the setting up of this committee will do nothing whatever to lower prices for the consumers. The work of the committee will not in any way increase the volume of goods available for purchase by the people. As a matter of fact I think it might have the opposite effect. The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) in his interesting address this afternoon mentioned the article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen last night headed "Manufacturers Shelves Loaded With Goods". I am going to ask the Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) this question: What will the committee's work do to get these goods that are now loading the shelves of the manufacturers into the hands of the consumers of this country so they can use them? What will this committee's work do to prevent a further increase in inventories in this country that may be detrimental to the people? In my judgment
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the withholding of goods from the general public is just as bad as price fixing. People suffer just the same, and perhaps worse. The article reads in part:
Manufacturers' shelves were loaded with a record $3,451,800,000 worth of raw materials and finished goods at the end of August . . .
Imagine the tremendous inventory. Then it says:
Hising steadily, month by month, over the period of a year, the inventories in August reflected a $56 million increase from July and a total advance of $899 million from August last year.
Then the article concludes with this striking statement:
"Volume rose slowly during the last quarter of 1950 and the first quarter of 1951, and much more rapidly during the next four months," the bureau said. "At the end of July this year total volume appears to have been 16 per cent above the low point reached last November."
If these goods were available on the market today what a difference it might make to the level of prices. What is this committee going to do to help get these goods out on the market? Nothing at all. There will be delay and more delay until they have a chance to tighten up. In fact the work of this committee might possibly forewarn some of these people and put them in a position to capitalize further at the expense of the consumers of this country through the accumulation of huge inventories.
I also ask the Minister of Justice to tell us in what way the setting up of this committee will abolish or reduce government taxes that contribute directly to high prices. I wonder if the Minister of Justice would be prepared to bring his colleague, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), before this committee and have him give testimony as to how government taxes contribute to a level of prices such as the people of this country never before have had to pay. I can see nothing in what the committee is empowered to do by the resolution that would in any way help the taxation situation. I wonder if the Minister of Justice will be able to tell us how the setting up of this committee will help those people who have not the purchasing power today to get the things they need. How will this committee help them? I am referring, for instance, to the recipients of veterans pensions and allowances, the old age pensioners, and to the dependents of the gallant fellows who are fighting in Korea, who are suffering at the same time the disabilities attendant on them because of the terrific high cost of living. What will this committee do for them? It will do nothing except perhaps intensify the situation by delay. What, therefore, are we to do? We are confronted with a resolution to set up a committee when what we want is
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action. I suggest that the government get off their plush bottom seats and dig into this whole matter.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Get off what?


Solon Earl Low: Their plush bottom seats and dig into this cost of living business with something really worth while that is designed to bring down the general level of prices. At the same time let us follow up the suggestion made by the hon. member for Lake Centre. I cannot refer to his amendment except to say that if I had had a chance to vote for it I certainly would have supported it. I supported Mr. Speaker's ruling because I felt technically he was right, but I should like to have seen the amendment couched in a little different terms or started a little ahead of where it did start as an amendment to the resolution. Then the hon. member for Lake Centre would have had my wholehearted support.
I think what he proposed is sound. This resolution should be calling for a joint committee to study the whole Combines Investigation Act and recommend ways and means of tightening it up, making it more effective and at the same time perhaps helping the minister become a little more effective in applying it. I think that is what we should have. I have no objection to the committee envisaged by the resolution. It may be able to do some good, and frankly I am all for making it possible for the various trade associations across the country to present their views. I have no objection to that at all. Let us get all their views. Let them come, say what they have to say, and give us the information we ought to have. Maybe they can help us; but for goodness sake let us not fool ourselves into believing that is going to help the cost of living situation or relieve the people of this country of the burden of high prices they have to carry; not for a moment.
At the same time the committee is carrying on its work let us get the Minister of Justice to bring in a wider reference and give us a chance to express our views on the whole of the Combines Investigation Act. At the same time let us get after this cost of living business and do something really worth while about it so we can justify ourselves as a parliament in this country. If we go back to our constituents after this session is over having done nothing but what is envisioned in the resolution, the people ought to rise up and kick the daylights out of somebody. I think the people they should be aiming their kicks at are the fellows in the front line who formulate policy.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Kick them in their plush bottom seats.


Solon Earl Low: Yes, as my hon. friend says. I am not opposing the resolution, not for a moment. We will support the idea of it, but we are not fooling ourselves that it is going to help. We demand that the government get busy and put something before us that is really worth while.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I find myself in entire agreement with the remarks, particularly the concluding ones, of the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low), not only with the suggestion which he made-amounting almost to one that physical violence should be used, because it is a desperate situation-but particularly with his feeling that this resolution amounts to nothing more than a joke and shallow gesture on the part of the government in attempting to relieve themselves of the steadily mounting pressure of popular protest against the high cost of living. It is a sorry exhibition that we are seeing now of brave promises followed by weak retreat and complete lack of action.
We look at the speech from the throne and find that it definitely forecast legislation. The house and the people of the country were given to believe that the government was going to do something. It was carefully kept secret, but the government was definitely going to produce and lay before parliament some legislation so that parliament might have the opportunity to consider it, to strengthen it, to change it or to pass it in the form in which it was presented. Something was to be done of benefit to the people so they might be relieved of some of the burden of the cost of living.
Unfortunately what we heard yesterday convinces us that this promise has turned out to be nothing more than an exercise in dialectics. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Garson) was asked yesterday whether this resolution to appoint a committee, then on Votes and Proceedings and now before us for discussion, did not indicate a change in government policy from that forecast in the speech from the throne. He said it was no change, that it was merely a development, that it merely complements what they said in the speech from the throne they were going to do. We might ask ourselves: When is a change not a change? The answer would be: When it is a change in government policy but when to admit it would be embarrassing; then it becomes a "development".
If we look at the speech from the throne we see forecast in definite words the intention

to introduce legislation to deal with the cost of living. The speech from the throne states:
Every measure will be taken which my ministers believe will be effective in counteracting inflation without impairing our free institutions. The antiinflationary measures already in force-
One might pause and ask what anti-inflationary measures are already in force?
-have checked the upward trend of prices of goods and services affected by their operation.
I do not know just what exceptions the government would wish to make from the classes of goods and services affected by their operation, but it must be a very narrow class of goods because we have learned today that the cost of living index, which reflects the cost of goods and services in this country, far from being checked, has, in fact increased again this month.
There is the bold statement in the speech from the throne that every measure will be taken to counteract inflation. Immediately after that statement, so as to create deliberately the impression that the succeeding paragraph was worded in the light of the promise to take action against inflation, we find these words:
The government has received an interim report from the committee studying the combines legislation recommending that suppliers of goods should be prohibited from requiring or inducing distributors to resell such goods at fixed or minimum resale prices. You will be asked to consider legislation arising out of the committee's interim report.
We were to be asked to consider legislation. What sort of legislation? Obviously legislation which would be one of these measures to counteract inflation. That was the definite understanding given to this house and the country, with a great deal of attendant publicity, by this government in the speech from the throne. Now we have what? Do we have legislation? The minister says he has a draft bill somewhere in the recesses of the Department of Justice. He says that bill may be laid before the committee in the early stages of its proceedings. That is as close as we are to get to the legislation. There is no time limit set upon the deliberations of the committee. It is not definitely instructed to consider that bill, if there is such a bill. It is to consider another committee's report.
Of course there has been a change in policy, a change in the announced intention of the government. Instead of having a bill brought before parliament which might be considered and approved or disapproved, we are to have another committee. I maintain that the course of events since the beginning of this session approximately a month ago indicates clearly that the government has no policy for checking inflation and preventing a further increase 94699-441
Combines Legislation
in the cost of living. Indeed, the circumstances of which we are now aware suggest beyond any doubt that the government put pressure upon this MacQuarrie committee to produce the interim report which is the subject matter of this resolution.
It will be remembered that the government lost four by-elections last June largely as a result of the dissatisfaction of the people with their ability to deal with the cost of living. They were desperate to find something which would relieve that pressure, so they decided they would grasp at this straw of resale price maintenance. Accordingly they virtually urged the committee to bring in a report recommending that something might be done along these lines, and representing that it would have an effect on the cost of living.
This is not an isolated viewpoint that I am putting forward here, nor is it unsupported. I find support for this viewpoint in an article which appeared in the Financial Post by Kenneth Wilson, a reporter who, I think hon. members will agree, is one of the best informed in the press gallery, particularly on matters of this kind. This article did not appear in September or October; it appeared in July, about three weeks after the byelections, and there is some significance to that space of time. The article reads:
Government Seeks Curb "Fair Resale Prices"; Hopes For Combines Probe Support "Fair" Price
Curbs Sought by Government See Wide Open Competition as Retail Strong AntiInflation Weapon-Would Make Illegal Retail Price "Suggestions" by Brand Makers
By Kenneth R. Wilson
Ottawa (Staff)-Resale price maintenance practices in Canada may come under heavy fire in the fall session of parliament.
The government, it's learned, is anxious to legislate curbs on these practices (by which manufacturers suggest uniform resale prices to "franchised" retailers) as a new, useful and important anti-inflation weapon.
Price maintenance has been one of the subjects studied by the MacQuarrie commission, appointed a year ago to examine combines legislation and related statutes. The government is hoping for strong support from the commission (chaired by Hon. Justice J. H. MacQuarrie of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia) in its plans to secure price maintenance curbs.
We all know how government hopes, indicated to committees in various ways, have a powerful force of suggestion behind them. In its desperation the government sought the only solution it could think of, to get a report from another committee which would recommend that price maintenance agreements be made illegal. So on September 10 the Minister of Justice backed up his hope and wrote the committee inviting them to make a repoi't. At that time the committee had

Combines Legislation
been sitting for some fourteen months considering combines legislation and had produced nothing by way of a report. On September 10 the minister invited the committee to produce an interim report on the subject of price maintenance in the hope, as I say, that it would relieve some of the pressure which) was building up against the government.
I classify this whole proceeding as nothing more than a cruel joke at the expense of the Canadian people, and so it has turned out. The letter requesting the committee for a report was surrounded by considerable publicity. I believe the government put out this publicity concerning the possibility of legislation against price maintenance agreements in the hope of starting a price war and therefore being able to say, "Look, we have now given relief against the high cost of living." They had no regard for the dangers and evil consequences which attend such price wars. As a matter of fact, for a day or two in the city of Hamilton we did have a minor form of price war which fizzled out rather quickly.
In the meantime, however, the government had obtained its report and proceeded to insert in the speech from the throne the definite forecast of intention to which I have referred. When it was found that this did not produce the effect hoped for, that is the lowering of prices through price wars, and in addition the government received the views of the well informed and responsible bodies of opinion throughout the whole of Canada, seriously questioning whether the elimination of price maintenance agreements would be beneficial; when the protests began coming in against the report of the committee and the proposed legislation, the government found itself on the spot. As the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Low) said, it found itself in a position where any government with any idea of what to do would have got off its plush-bottomed seats and done something about it. Unfortunately this government has not any program. It has no idea how to deal with this problem of inflation. The government is in the uncomfortable position of having committed itself to a course which it finds now is not only unpopular, but which it seems is highly unlikely to produce beneficial results.
Now we find the cruel hoax carried one step further. Under the guise of doing something beneficial for the people the house is asked to approve of another committee to review this matter. What we see today is the culmination of this sorry history of continued inaction, failure, and lack of leadership in dealing with the problem of the rising cost of living. Let us review some of these

developments. It would be a completely farcial history were it not for the disastrous consequences to the Canadian people. In 1948 we had the first prices committee of this house. After sitting throughout the session and labouring hard and long, and after producing a report, it was succeeded by a royal commission. This commission worked long and hard, and at considerable expense to the Canadian people, it also produced a report. Although they both reported, as yet nothing had been done to check the increase in the cost of living. Then in June, 1950, we had the MacQuarrie committee appointed to investigate the whole field of combines legislation. Now in 1951, fifteen months later, we are to have a fourth committee.
Then let us look at what has happened to the cost of living during the same period. In January, 1948, about the time the first parliamentary committee was appointed, the cost of living index was 148-3. As I say, that committee laboured long and hard, and in June it was succeeded by the royal commission on prices. The cost of living index had risen by then from 148-3 to 154-3, about six points. In June, 1950, the MacQuarrie committee was appointed. By then the cost of living index had increased to 167-5. That committee has been sitting for fifteen months, and during that time the cost of living index has increased from 167-5 to 190-4 for September, 1951. We are now considering the appointment of yet another parliamentary committee. From 148-3 to 190-4; that is the history of the cost of living index. We have had four committees to deal with the matter; each one has laboured long and hard, and the cost of living has increased from 148-3 to 190-4; that is the history of the action taken by the government. We must take a very gloomy view of the future for the people of this country if the government can think of no other way to combat the rise in the cost of living index than the appointment of committees and commissions.
The cost of living index has increased by nearly 32 points since the appointment of the first parliamentary committee on prices. That was over three years ago, Mr. Speaker, and three committees later what do we have? Legislation is forecast in the speech from the throne. Is there any action to deal with this problem? No; we have the fourth, or parliamentary, committee, and that is not even a committee to consider the cost of living but is to consider the report of a special committee which arose out of the royal commission which, in turn, arose out of a parliamentary committee. It is the sorry story of the dog chasing his own tail. The government does not know where this trend began, and it does not know where it is

going to end. The people of Canada are caught in the centre, and they are the sufferers. The people are demanding action.
Let us consider, as the member for Peace River (Mr. Low) did, what prospect there is of getting any action out of this committee. The terms of reference do not forecast any legislation. They do ask for some recommendations, but the MacQuarrie committee, which is composed of able men, has been sitting for fifteen months. One can only assume that that committee would not have reported on this very limited facet of the matter had it not been for the minister's letter of September 10. I am not going to in any way derogate from or jeer at the useful accomplishments which can be achieved by parliamentary committees, but parliamentary committees can only achieve useful results if they are appointed by the government in a desire to produce useful results, not in a desire to stall and furnish yet another excuse for not dealing with this pressing problem, and the whole history of this government's action leaves no other conclusion open but that that is the reason why the committee is being appointed. The terms of reference indicate it; the failure to give the committee something that it may really get its teeth into indicate it; the fact that there is no time limit within which the committee has to report, and the fact that no indication is given that legislation is to result this session from the committee's report, all lead to no other conclusion but that this committee will continue to sit and sit and that the cost of living will continue to rise and rise, as has been the history in the past.
We feel, Mr. Speaker, that this committee could be made useful to deal with the cost of living if it were to be given, by its terms of reference, the chance to consider the whole of the Combines Investigation Act and those things which should have been done under that act to deal with the problem of the cost of living, in so far as offences against fair trade practices are responsible for the increase. It is not open to me to discuss specifically the amendment which you, Mr Speaker, have ruled out of order; but I think it is open to me to say that, notwithstanding the fact that the amendment as presented was ruled out of order, that fact by no means precludes the government, if it is sincere and well intentioned in this matter, from adopting the suggestion which was contained in that amendment and in fact referring to that committee the whole field of combines legislation. I urge upon the government strongly that this should be done.
There are other things the government might do, in addition, in order to deal with
Combines Legislation
this cost of living. Some of those things have been mentioned before but I do not believe they suffer from repetition or that they can be driven home too strongly. One of them is that the government should make a real effort to reduce its own expenditures. If only the government and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) would devote to an effort to reduce expenditures one-half the energy he devotes to trying to find an explanation as to why he cannot reduce them, I believe we would have some results. But we see continuing this session the tendency to increase expenditures; and that applies particularly to non-defence expenditures. We find on the order paper a resolution which indicates that the expenditure of one department, namely the printing and stationery department, is to be doubled, from $2 million to $4 million.


Mr. Mcllrailh:: No.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I would point out to the hon. member that no reference may be made to that resolution.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I think I am permitted to say, in general terms, that on the order paper right now is at least one forecast of legislation which indicates that expenditures and activities in non-defence categories are to be increased, and in fact doubled.


Some hon. Members:: No.


George James McIlraith: It does not indicate any such thing.


Edmund Davie Fulton: In this connection I think we might again consider an editorial which appeared in the Winnipeg Tribune on July 31, 1948, which pointed out that one of the main beneficiaries of this inflationary process that is going on at the moment is the government itself; and that, far from taking the necessary action to reduce expenditures so as to deal with that inflation and minimize it, the government is instead increasing its expenditures and increasing its taxes. That editorial points out that the prices committee of parliament-to which I have already referred and which sat during 1948-had urged the government to reduce its expenditures and to reduce its taxes. The editorial reads in part as follows:
In its report to parliament, the committee gave a strong hint that one of the contributing factors to high prices is the dominion government's tax policies. The report politely urged that the 25 per cent excise tax, which was imposed by radio last November, be dropped out the window as soon as possible.
Apparently the dominion government likes "high profits" as much as the next money-making enterprise, because so far Ottawa has delicately refrained from taking any notice of this recommendation.

Combines Legislation
It is true that the 25 per cent excise tax as such was discontinued with respect to some commodities; but it was largely restored again in the budget of this spring. We therefore see that the government itself is not only failing to take any action to deal with inflation, in appointing a committee but, as previously indicated, it disregards the recommendations of the very committees which it appoints. I can see no signs to indicate that there will be any more profitable results from this committee which they are urging us to appoint now. That is the history of parliamentary committees. Their recommendations urging the government to take certain courses of action are completely ignored, and in fact the action which follows is the complete reverse of that urged by the committee.
There are other actions which could be taken, some of which were suggested by my leader when he spoke in the throne speech debate. There are other things which could be done now or which could be referred to the committee which is being set up, for their consideration, so that the committee might do a useful job instead of just being a delaying committee. I would refer particularly to the possibility of imposing mark-up ceilings in an effort to prevent the continued rise of prices. It seems to me that information as to the percentage profit which is necessary in almost every conceivable line of business in this country must be available to the government as the result of their experience during the war and after, in the wartime prices and trade board, when markup control was part of the program administered by that board. It would not be necessary to introduce over-all price ceilings. What I suggest is this. If, as is indicated in the MacQuarrie committee report and in other reports that we have had, any part of the increase in the cost of living is due to excessively high prices being charged, then that situation can be dealt with at this time- without imposing over-all price ceilings-by imposing mark-up ceilings so that no person, be he manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer, will be free to take a greater percentage of profit than is necessary to enable him to carry on his business with a reasonable margin.
As I see it, Mr. Speaker, that action would not only have the effect of possibly reducing some prices and certainly of eliminating unfair profiteering in the future; I think it would have a beneficial effect in restoring to the Canadian people confidence in the system under which we are now operating, by bringing about a state of affairs in which they would know, with absolute certainty, that

from now on nobody is going to be able to profiteer out of shortages and gouge the public as a result of shortages created by the defence effort which is being put forward by the people of Canada.
Other suggestions have been made, one of them by the hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Stuart) the other day, which I believe merit investigation; and that is that the tariff-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Three Liberals over there.


Edmund Davie Fulton: I am referring to the suggestions he made as to governmental action, not the private action which he outlined, which was a matter for himself. I believe there are in Canada a number of industries that are in a position where they could compete, but where tariffs, which were initially designed to enable those industries to become established-and which were properly used for that purpose-now enable them to charge prices in excess of what is necessary. With the hon. member for Charlotte, 1 certainly believe that situation should be closely investigated and that action should be taken where the investigation indicates the necessity for it.
But the most important of these actions which can be taken to deal with this situation we are considering today is the one put forward by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) and incorporated in an amendment which, as I say, I still wish the government would take into consideration. That was that they refer the general combines legislation to the committee so the committee might hear evidence not only on this very narrow and confined aspect of unfair trade practices, if they be unfair trade practices, involved in resale price maintenance, but might also consider appropriate action in the whole field of unfair trade practices generally. I doubt very much whether it will be posible for the committee, if it is to go into the whole field covered by the MacQuarrie report, to hear representations and bring in a report at this session. Therefore I do not think the minister can dismiss this by saying it is a suggestion for further delay. If he will be fair and impartial about this whole matter I think he will admit that it is impossible for a committee to do a thorough job and bring in a report at this session. That is one of the objections we have to it. That being so, it is not possible to dismiss the suggestion of referring the whole combines legislation to the committee as being merely a delaying tactic which would not produce any legislation at this session.

The situation needs a thorough study. It deserves it, and I believe a parliamentary committee appointed in that spirit could give it that study. In conclusion I urge the minister, notwithstanding that the amendment itself has been declared out of order and therefore cannot be put to a vote, to submit the whole field of combines legislation to the committee which he proposes to set up.


Mr. O. L. Jones (Yale):: Combines Legislation
per cent. On sales of from fifty to one hundred and so on, the discount increases until it reaches 20 per cent. A large distributing unit in a small town that I know of can purchase that article at 20 per cent less than a small account, so with the article I have in mind having a fixed price at resale the small man working on a much smaller profit can meet that competition. I am not going to discuss the right or wrong of it, but there is an advantage to the little merchant in the fixed price. So far as the consumer is concerned it is not fair to have that extra 20 per cent put on the little man.
Some of the discounts have been exposed in the various combines investigation reports that I have noticed. The fixing of a retail price has helped some small retailers-there is no question about that-to overcome unfair competition because in order to give discounts I feel that the small distributors must pay more than unit costs. Such excess payments in general become the discount or rebate given to the larger purchaser at the expense of the smaller one, whose unit costs are too high. The manufacturer or wholesaler must do this to remain solvent, and their transactions must balance. This is particularly vicious in connection with food products. I could enumerate several instances, but those who have read the prices reports know them as well as I do.
So I feel that before any committee is set up, or before we can go any further, the unfair practices common in our country of both producers and wholesalers should be done away with, and particularly the vicious system of rebates and discounts, which hampers and hurts the little man. If the
consumer is protected I believe a fair unit price would meet that condition. I think also the investigation should cover unfair business practices of the government. I know it will be said they are not in business. But they are; they give protection by tariffs to certain industries in this country, and these tariffs are to the detriment of consumers because the articles protected by tariff could be brought in for much less than we can produce them in Canada. Therefore the government itself should be subject to some investigation. It may be that the policy is sound. On the other hand it is hard to understand people under free enterprise using a tariff as a means of preventing that freedom of competition about which they preach.
We may hope in vain, but I do believe that the public of Canada are entitled to a much broader investigation, if another is to take place. Personally, I think we should be satisfied with the information we have in hand. We should take steps to protect the public of Canada from exploitation, and not fool them by telling them that the cost of living will be brought down if this motion passes the house.
On motion of Mr. Churchill the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Fournier (Hull):: Mr. Speaker, on Monday we will resume the debate on the address, and sincerely hope that we may dispose of the subamendment, if at all possible.
At 6.30 p.m. the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to the order of the house passed on October 26, 1951.

Monday, November 5, 1951